


comparisons to a broken crayon

by foxinspace



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Canon LGBTQ Character, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Misgendering, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7184693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxinspace/pseuds/foxinspace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chara keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop with their new family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	comparisons to a broken crayon

You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was like this at home too sometimes. A lull- you would get a piece of candy, or a hair tousle, or a new pair of shoes or the most treasured of all, whispered affirmations of love, like you meant something, like you were _someone…_

And then it would all shatter into a million pieces and you’d be bad again. Your parents’ smiles would stop before they reached their eyes, you were talked about in hissing whispers. They’d demand you put in your contacts, grab your arm and pull you, never caring about the bruises that puffed up on pallid, sickly skin. _Bad girl_  would echo in time with your breathing.

But in the underground…

All the monsters have red eyes, too. Toriel and Asgore and even Asriel, with tiny horns and baby soft fur, have eyes just as red as yours. They set you apart in the human world, marked you as anathema. They make you accepted here.

Toriel feeds you butterscotch pie and teaches you to knit, infinitely patient with your clumsy fingers. Even when you get fed up and end up snarling the yarn into a massive knot, muttering all the swear words you ever heard your dad say under your breath, she just smiles and show you how to fix it (you don’t deserve it). 

Asgore makes you tea and tells you stories about what it’s like to rule, making you laugh with his descriptions of this monster and that trip. You sidle into the garden one day, barefoot and trembling, but he doesn’t tell you to leave, just hands you something that looks a bit like a fork and shows you how to weed.

You don’t know how you feel about Asriel. He’s the one who found you when you called. He’s the one who helped you. He’s small, nonthreatening. He tells you that he likes your name and your hair and the way you smile (you hate how you smile, it’s so creepy, it marks you as a _bad girl_ , but Asriel loves it). He smuggles you chocolate bars in the middle of the night when you’re too afraid to sneak out of bed (not that you’ll ever, _ever_  admit it).

He even shares his crayons- and doesn’t get mad when you accidentally snap the tip off the red one. His eyes get a little wet and his snout a little wobbly, but he says that it’s okay, because now you can use the tip to make the color brighter. Your eyes get suspiciously damp, and you pretend you’re coming down with something (which backfires when Toriel doses you with monster medication, making you sneeze for real).

You draw yourself as a demon, bloody red eyes and jagged black smile, periwinkle blue knife in one hand (Asriel’s using the grey crayon). Asriel looks at your paper, frowns lightly, then draws himself next to you, but bigger, almost as big as Toriel. He’s wearing something that looks like Toriel’s dress in it, and has big, rainbow-infused wings.

“You look like a dork,” you tell him, and he sniffs indignantly.

“I am the _God_  of _Hyperdeath,”_ he tells you, his hands fisted on his hips like it adds dignity, and you can’t help but laugh.

“God of Hyper Dorkness,” you reply, and your coloring session devolves into play-fighting.

Toriel tucks you both in at night, although you usually end up in the same bed by morning (it feels safer, curled up next to Asriel’s fluff, where you can hear his heart beat thud in your ears).

Every day, as you start to drift off, blankets pulled up to your nose, you wonder:

_Is this what it’s like to have a family?_


End file.
